Wind and Earth
by Plantress
Summary: A full turn of the Avatar cycle before Aang is born, a young Earthbender named Kana runs into an Airbender named Kiet. She agrees to let him accompany her to Ba Sing Se.Part 1 of 3 up.


-1

A full turn of the cycle before Avatar Aang was to be born…

Wind and Earth

_Beginning_

Kana's Ostrich-horse shifted it's feet and made nervous noises as they got near the stream. She had been riding for several hours and had been pushing it because the last mile had been roughing. Sighing the young earth nation woman sighted and dismounted.

"Okay girl, you can rest for a while." she told her mount. As the ostrich-horse plunged toward the stream and stuck it's beak in the water, Kana followed a much more sedate pace. She knew the birds feelings though. It had been unusually hot this summer. She removed the packs it was wearing and walked over to large boulder that rose out of the ground. It was almost twice her height and provided a bit of shade. Wiping swear from her brow she sat down in the shade to pull out her lunch. As she went though the meager rations she had left, she frowned. The reason she was stuck out here was bad luck. That was all.

Her family had been on their way to the city of Ba Sing Se. The Emperor had started to build a giant wall. It was a project that promised to take decades to complete, and one that the Emperor needed lots of workers for. Kana's father had been hired and then decided to drag his whole family to the city.

_I will be an old man when the wall is finished, if it is even finished within my lifetime! By then, you my children, will have found other ways of supporting yourself in such a large city. _ Was what he ha said when he announced the move. Her Uncle, her fathers older brother that had gotten him the job in the first place, had agreed.

_Besides,_ Uncle had said. _There are plenty of unattached young men who have come to work on the Great Wall! By the time your of age, your bound to have found a husband. _ The last was aimed at her and her two sisters. Although Kana wasn't ready to think about marriage after only having lived sixteen years, she was interested in seeing other guys besides the ones in her small village.

The journey out had been smooth until they had stopped for the night at a town that was having a market day. The next day her Uncle had wanted to leave at dawn, but she had wanted to browse through the marketplace. She had her father had argued until her mother had proposed and idea.

_We have several ostrich horses. _Kimiko had pointed out. _ Leave one with Kana. We have several wagons and are traveling much slower than a single rider would. She can catch up to us by tomorrow morning. _

Her father had sighed and said it was reasonable, and though her Uncle hadn't been as sure he hadn't said anything. Kimiko was small, but she was also an Earthbender and one of the most stubborn people in their family. She had got her way. All the while she had been talking Kimiko's eyes had been on her daughter. Kana had known what her mother was trying to say with out her putting it into so many words: _This is your chance to prove to us that your are responsible and trustworthy enough to be left alone. Don't mess it up!_

Kana had fully intended too, and had even left a little bit early. The fact that she had spent over half of her money had helped her along too. She should have caught up with the rest of her family a long time before the next night. She would have too, if the storm hadn't struck. It had been cloudy all day, but Kana hadn't really been paying any attention to the weather. That it was spring and this area was known for sudden storms had been lost on her, so when the massive thunders storm had hit she had been caught off guard. The rain had been coming down so hard that she couldn't barely see anything in front of her, and she before she had could do anything the thunder and lightening had frightened her ostrich-horse so badly it had took. She had been forced to hold on for dear life until the stupid animal had worn itself out, and even she didn't no where she was and had been forced to create a shelter, thank the gods all the while that she was an Earthbender and didn't have to find anything to shelter under.

After the rain had left up she had changed to dry clothes, then got a good look at her surroundings….and realized that she was completely and totally lost. To make matters worse the one map she had been given in case something like this had happened, was in the only pouch that had leaked and all the ink was washed out making it totally unreadable. She hadn't known where she was, no landmark had looked or even sounded familiar. She has chosen the direction she had thought she had been going in, and rode off.

After several she still hadn't found the road, but she did manage to find a small village. All of them were farmers and aside from the general direction it was in, the opposite way she had been going, they didn't know where Ba Sing Se was. None of them had any good maps, but a little way on she had found a traveling peddler who had a map. A good chunk of the money had left had gone to buy it and it wasn't until she had rode a few more miles that she had actually checked and realized that she had been suckered. It held only the general outlines of the four nations and a huge arrow pointing toward the middle of the Earth Nation, with the words 'You are here' over it. The hills were still echoing with her screams of rage from that one. She had wanted to go and shake her money out of the fraud but she knew that she had gone too far to actually go back and besides the peddler had probably hidden himself. That had been a couple of days ago. The supplies she had bought in the little village were running out and she would have to buy some more supplies…if she found somewhere to find to buy them from. That would probably take up the last of her money…and then….

"And then I will be lost, alone and broke. I'll probably starve on the road or be ambushed by bandits when I'm too weak with hunger to fend them off, or be swept away by flood. The way my luck is going something is bound to happen!" With a helpless growl she slammed her fist into the boulder and felt it shudder. She that she was expecting.

"YEOWCH!" That she wasn't.

"Who's there?" She yelled. Suddenly her idle musing on running into bandits, wasn't just an abstract concept.

"Come out here right now!" Kana hoped she sounded a lot more confident that she felt. Her Father always said that bandits didn't attack people that they thought would fight back. They only too from those that they thought were helpless. Kana hoped she didn't look helpless.

"I'm warning you, I'm a trained warrior!" Slightly true. She was a trained Earthbender….even if her only battles had been matches with the other Earthbenders in her village. Kana began to circle around the rock, and when she got the other side, she froze then took a deep breath.

"GOT YA!" She cried and jumped out from behind the boulder. "….." There was no one in sight. The teenager looked around for a few seconds in confusion, then stalked over to the other side of the rock. She peered out. The only thing she could see was the ostrich-horse looking back at her.

"Was it my imagination?" She muttered as she walked out from behind the rock. Kana stretched as she walked toward her packs. As soon as she her ostrich-horse had rested she would set up camp and rest. Tomorrow she would..

Bump.

Kana blinked as she ran into something. _ Wait, was there something here earlier_? She looked up…and meet a pair of very surprised light grey eyes. Everything froze for several seconds as her find tried to figure out what was going on.

"YAH!" With a startled scream Kana jumped back as she realized she had just run into a person. A person she was sure hadn't been standing there a few seconds ago. Unfoundedly she when she pushed away she trapped and landed on her butt. She still managed to scramble backwards however and as soon as she was near enough to, dodged behind the bolder. The young earth bender flattened herself against the cool rock as she attempted to get her heart and her breathing under control.

_Why didn't I see him!? I know I looked over there before I came out! _She took a deep breath. _Okay, it can't be a ghost or anything like that because I ran into them and you can't run into a ghost. Could it be a spirit or something? _ She closed her eyes and began to run through the breathing exercises that she had been taught when she was learning Earthbending. _I guess the only way is to well…look. _Taking one last breath, she peaked out. They were still standing there. Kana blinked when she realized it was a guy who couldn't be much older than her. He was wearing orange and yellow robes that she hadn't seen before too, but it was clear that he was at the very least, human. He also looked to, well, clean to be a bandit of any sort. Really, he looked almost as surprised as she was. She took deep breath and stepped out.

"Who are you?" She asked, trying to sound menacing. He blinked.

"Kiet." He said, then shook himself. "Who are you?"

"Why should I tell you?" She asked, and shifted her stance just a tiny bit, so that it was more stable. She immediately felt better. This was an earth bending stance. Now, if he deiced to attack, she was the one who would get in the first strike.

"Because I just told you mine?" 

"Okay, you have a point there…" She sighed. "It's Kana." The earth bender snapped her head up and pointed at Kiet. "Now it's your turn to answer one of my questions!"

"Why should I?"

"How in the heck did you appear like that? I looked and I know you weren't there a before I walked out!" Kana continued, completely ignoring Kiet's question.

"I didn't appear, humans can't do that. It's not my fault hat you didn't think to look up." Kiet sighed.

"Look up? Up where?"

"Up there." The young man pointed up. Kana followed his finger.

"You came out of the sky?" She asked skeptically. Kiet followed the line of his finger blinked, then blushed and pointed lower.

"Don't say stupid things." He coughed. "I was on top of the rock."

"You're the one that was pointing at the sky, Genius!" Kana snapped. "And how did in the heck would you get up there!? I'm an earth bender and even I can't climb that."

"Who said anything about climbing?" Kiet grinned, then jumped slightly.. ..and shot up at least ten feet in the air as Kana gabbed. It was until he came back down that the earth bender noticed the slight swirl of air around his feet, and something in her mind clicked. Strange, close, weird arrow tattoo, bald…

"You're an air bender!" She said. Although her Uncle had talked about the traders that visited Ba Sing Se, she had never seen an Air Nomad before.

"What else would I be?" He asked haughtily. Kana glared.

"I've never meet an air bender before! My village wasn't exactly the center of civilization." Suddenly she narrowed her eyes at the tall young man. Her Uncle had never really had anything good to say about any Air nomads. _Flightily, strange, childish people. _ He had complained once. _ I never know if the really mean what they so, or if they'll forget what the promised to do and leave without completing a deal. I don't know why the Emperor allows them in Ba Sing Se. The nations shouldn't mix like that. _

"What are you doing here anyway? Don't you Airbender's usually live in temples or something?"

"Well, yes.." Keit said. "But I'm on a journey at the moment."

"Then where's everyone else? Don't you people usually travel in groups with flying Bison and stuff? Why are you alone out here?" Kana had a good memory for stories and now that she had a real Airbender in front of her, all of her Uncles stories of life in Ba Sing Se were rushing to the front of her mind.

"Aren't you all alone as well? I don't think you should be so suspicious when you don't belong her either." Keit shoot back. Kana glared.

"I was born and raised, in the Earth Nation. I belong here and the only reason that I'm stuck out in the middle of nowhere is because I happened to have lost my map that shows the way to Ba Sing Se. You on the other hand are an Air Nomad who is far away from home and is apparently not here on a trading mission." At each word Kana had taken another step until now she was right in front of the Airbender. He gulped.

"What are you doing here!?" She yelled. Keit tied to take a step backward, but tripped and landed hard on his backside.

"You wouldn't understand." He stammered.

"Try me." Kana leaned down and glared at him.

"I..uh…um…that is….you see…." Keit's eyes darted back and forth as he tried to think of an excuse or a way to escape. Suddenly his eyes widened and he smirked.

"I was meditating." He said loftily .

"Mediating? Out here?" Kana backed up. The air bender shifted and crossed his legs.

"I was attempting to find enlightenment and my place in the universe. In order to do that I was forced to separate myself from all other disturbing influences, including other annoying people."

"You came all the way out here just to mediate? Wait…annoying!? Are you talking about me!?"

"I told you that you wouldn't be able to understand." Was all the answer she got. Kana glared at the Airbender then whirled around. She stalked over to her packs and grabbed them.

"Fine. Mediate all you want, I really don't care. However I actually have something I have to do and don't have time to sit around all day!" She yelled a she walked over and started to saddle the ostrich-horse.

"Did you say you were going to Ba Sing Se?" Kana turned and glared at the Airbender.

"And if I did…?"

"Then I'll go with you. I have business in Ba Sing Se as well

"WHAT!?" She whirled around and glared at Keit again.

"First you call me stupid, then you say I'm annoying and now you want to travel with me!? Are you an idiot or something? Besides, weren't you 'meditating on the principals of the universe or something'? "

"The reason I was traveling in the first place was because I have to meet someone in Ba Sing Se. I just used the opportunity to find some solitude. Now I must continue on."

"Then continue on you own!

"So you won't let me come with you?"

"Weren't you listening, I said of course not!" She shouted. "You insult me and scared me half to death! I am not letting you travel with me!"

"Look" Keit sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "My conscience would bother me if I let a girl travel alone." A rock whistling past his ear cut off his sentence. Kana shifted out of the earth bending stance.

"Who's helpless!?"

"I didn't say helpless…and you're an earth bender.."

"But you were going to. And," The young woman smirked. "What else would I be?" Keit opened his mouth to reply then shut it.

"Aren't you being unreasonable?" He asked after a while.

"No! And insulting me isn't going to make me change my mind." Kana had turned back to her ostrich-horse and was checking the packs to make sure they were on right.

"…" Keit was silent for a few seconds. "You know, you made me fall off that rock." Kana turned around puzzled.

"I did."

"I was sitting up there when you caused the whole thing to shake. It startled me so much I fell off."

"Are you trying to guilt trip me?" The earth bender turned and asked with a raised eyebrow. "If you are it isn't working. I'm sorry I made you fall but because you don't seem to be seriously injured, forgive me if I don't feel too sorry for you." She turned back around.

"… I have supplies."

"So do I, in case you haven't noticed." _Just not as much as I like. _ Kana thought.

"I have money."

"And so do I!" _Just very little of it.. _ "And I don't think you have anything that I really need." She mounted the oustridge-horse.

"I have a map."

"……" Kana turned and glared at him. "Let me see it." She ordered as she got dismounted.

"What?"

"Let me see this map you have. " She said impatiently. "The last time I got a map it turned out to be a fake. I want to make sure I don't get ripped off again." The air bender reached into the bag he had slung around his shoulder and pulled out a roll of parchment. Kana reached for it but at the last second Keit pulled it out of reached.

"How do I know you won't grab it and then run off." This time Kana did not glare at him. Instead she leveled her strongest Death Glare at the air bender.

"I will pretend I did not hear that, because if did, I would be forced to bury up to your neck in the ground and leave you there." Keit gulped. "I am not a thief and I will never take something without paying for it." Keit held the map out her and Kana snatched it. Unrolling it the young woman was relived to see that it was a very detailed, probably very expensive map. It eve had the small village that she had passed through on it. She rolled it up.

"Fine." She said and handed the map back to Keit. "You can come with, but only because I need that map." She walked to back to the Ostrich-horse. "Were leaving."


End file.
